Final Fantasy: Pawns
by VeryBerry96
Summary: Sakura has been summoned by Cosmos to fight alongside her warriors on the battlefield between harmony and discord. However, unlike the other warriors, Sakura has retained all memories of Spira, her friends and her journey so far. Will the other warriors despise her for this? Or will they see her as the help Cosmos wished for her to be? Sequel to Final Fantasy: Guardians.
1. Chapter 1 - Memories

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is the second story in a series, but can be read on its own. However if you'd like to get to know the characters before you read this fic then I'd recommend you go and read Final Fantasy: Guardians first.**

 **To those of you who are here because you read FF:G, hello! Thank you so much for reading my last fic and thank you sooooo much for giving this one a shot too.**

 **So yeah, Dissidia fic! I know some of you saw this coming from the hints I left dotted around in the first fic, but for those of you who don't know what Dissidia is, it's a Final Fantasy game for the PSP which brought together characters from all the main FF games to fight for either the goddess of harmony (Cosmos) or the god of discord (Chaos) and it's suuuuuuuch a good game. I really love it.**

 **Chances are, unless you've played every FF game out there, you won't know every character mentioned in this fic. Don't worry, I'm not really going to into more backstory than that covered in the game so you don't need to know stuff about them before you read this (I still know nothing about Vaan or Langua!).**

 **Anyway, long-ass AN over. I hope you will all enjoy this chapter and this fic, so please please pleeeease review!**

 **DISCLAIMER: Final Fantasy, its characters and plotlines are owned by Square Enix. I own my OC Sakura. She is my baby. You hurt her, I hurt you.**

* * *

 **Chapter 1 - Memories**

" _Sir Auron?" Yuna called out as she walked up to him. "I would like Rikku to be my guardian," she said, somewhat nervously._

 _Auron looked over at Rikku before walking over to her. Rikku looked down automatically, also looking nervous._

" _Show me your face," Auron said softly._

" _Huh?" Rikku asked, still looking down._

" _Look at me," Auron said, his voice threaded with a commanding tone._

 _Rikku glanced over at me out of the corner of her eye and I nodded. Auron already knew that Rikku was an Al Bhed since she was my cousin, but he must have just wanted to check._

" _Um, okay…" Rikku mumbled before slowly raising her head to look up at Auron, who is a good bit taller than her. But she had her eyes closed. I sighed and facepalmed at my cousin._

 _Auron chuckled slightly before saying, "Open your eyes."_

 _She opened one, and Auron smiled slightly. "As I thought…" he said quietly, looking over at me momentarily before looking back down at Rikku._

 _She had dropped her head again. "No good?" she asked._

" _Are you certain?" Auron asked quietly._

 _Rikku looked back up and nodded confidently. "A hundred percent," she said. "So…can I?"_

 _He looked over at Yuna with a small smile. "If Yuna wishes it."_

 _She nodded. "Yes, I do."_

 _Auron then looked round at me. "And if Sakura doesn't mind her cousin tagging along."_

 _I grinned. "Don't worry, I'll keep her in check."_

 _He smiled again before straightening his face out._

" _Well, I'm all for it!" Wakka said. "The more the merrier!"_

 _I smirked slightly, shaking my head to myself. Oh Wakka. If only you knew._

 _Rikku grinned and nodded. "Well, I'll just have to be the merriest!"_

 _I raised an eyebrow at her. "Is that even a word?"_

 _She stuck her tongue out at me. "It totally is!"_

 _Everyone laughed, and we were soon continuing on our path._

 _The forest next to the river was very dense. You could hardly see anything in there. But at one point I caught sight of a strange light._

 _I stopped walking and stared at it, but the others walked on as if they couldn't see anything. It was weird…it felt like it was almost calling to me…like it was willing me to come closer. Which I did, me being the idiot that I am._

 _I was suddenly very aware of how silent everything had become. I couldn't hear Rikku's constant chatter; I couldn't hear the river; I couldn't hear the many sounds of the forest. All I could focus on was this mysterious light. I was within touching distance of it when an ear-piercing shrieking noise broke through the silence. I covered my ears and fell to my knees as the light expanded until it was the only thing I could see. Then, everything went dark._

* * *

When I opened my eyes there was nothing but darkness. Was I…dead? But how? I'd seen a weird light in the forest next to the Moonflow and…then nothing. I'd just blacked out. How could I be dead?

"I assure you, you are not dead."

I whipped around to see a beautiful woman standing there. She had long golden blonde hair and crystal blue eyes. She was wearing a creamy white dress with golden detail around her neck and stomach, and golden jewellery twinkled on her wrists, ears and in her hair. Just from looking at her I could tell she wasn't human or Al Bhed, but I didn't know what she was.

"Be calm young one," she said softly, smiling. "There is no need to be afraid."

"Who…who are you?" I asked her, my voice shaking despite her telling me I shouldn't be scared.

"I am Cosmos, the goddess of harmony," she answered.

My eyes widened and I stepped back slightly. _"…Y kuttacc_ …" I gasped. As unbelievable as it sounded I somehow knew she wasn't lying. She really was a goddess.

"W…why are you here?" I managed to splutter out. "I'm an Al Bhed… Yevon's meant to hate us."

Cosmos smiled kindly. "I am not Yevon, Sakura. Your lineage does not concern me. I'm here to ask for your help."

I didn't really come as a shock that she knew my name, but what she said still confused me. "My help? With what?"

Cosmos's face fell. "I am afraid that even though I am the goddess of harmony, my world is far from calm and peaceful."

I frowned. "Your world?"

Cosmos nodded. "I am not of Spira. I believe you have been told that there are worlds other than your own?"

My mind flashed back to the old man Maechen on the Mi'ihen Highroad. He had said there were other worlds out there but he didn't know how to travel between them. I nodded slowly at Cosmos.

"Well my world controls the balance of every other world in existence," she explained. "I am the goddess of harmony and my enemy, Chaos, is the god of discord. We have been at war for eternity, summoning warriors from various worlds to fight for us."

"Wait, are you wanting _me_ to fight for you?" I asked, my eyes wide. "But I'm not a good fighter! Not compared to the others anyway. You should ask Auron or Tidus or-"

Cosmos held up her hand to stop me from talking. "I am well aware of your friend's talents Sakura, but it is your talents I am interested in. That is why I would like to ask for you to fight for me. Your skill with your sword is admirable for someone so young, and I believe you would be a great asset to us."

"…What's the catch?" I asked slowly.

Cosmos smiled. "You are a smart girl. I am afraid you would have a disadvantage. Every warrior I summon has most of their memories taken from them while they fight. In return they are given a crystal which increases their power so they have the ability to fight Chaos. However Sakura, I have never given this chance to any of my other warriors but I wish to give it to you. I will give you the opportunity to keep your memories of your home, your family, your friends, everything, but you will not be given a crystal."

"So, I wouldn't be able to fight Chaos?" Cosmos shook her head. "So…what would the point of me fighting for you be if I wouldn't be able to fight Chaos?"

"Chaos would be impossible for you without a crystal, but Chaos's warriors would not be. You could fight them with the help of your fellow warriors. And one more thing. Once your task is complete you will return to Spira and your memories of your time in my world will be wiped from your mind, until the right time comes to remember it all."

"…So let me make sure I've got this right. Basically I wouldn't have this crystal thing which would give me amazing strength to fight Chaos but I would keep my memories, and when my task is complete – whatever that means – I'll forget everything that happened until one day I'll randomly remember it?"

Cosmos nodded. "Exactly, yes."

"But…I still don't understand why you chose me," I said.

"Well, the truth is that one of your friends is already fighting in my world," Cosmos explained.

"What? Then of course I'll help!" I cried. "If one of my friends is there then of course I'll go! Why didn't you just say that in the first place?"

Cosmos smiled again. "That's exactly why I didn't say it. I knew I said that then you would agree to go without letting me explain anything else. You'd go in a heartbeat if it meant helping someone you care about."

I looked down, embarrassed at getting praise from a goddess.

"So, will you go?" Cosmos asked.

I looked back up at her and nodded. "Yes, I will. I'll fight for you against Chaos and his warriors."

"Thank you," Cosmos said with a genuinely grateful look on her face before she began to fade from my vision.

* * *

My head felt like it was about to burst with pain. I could feel I was lying on cold, hard ground but I couldn't bring myself to open my eyes. My hearing was muffled at first but after a few moments I could hear something.

"Hey, you okay? Can you hear me?"

I could feel someone shaking me so I very slowly forced myself to open my eyes. In front of me was a man with long black hair. He looked really worried but when he saw that I was awake he sighed in relief and sat back.

"Good, you're alive," he grinned.

"Seems like it," I grunted as I sat up and looked around. I was sitting in an empty grey landscape. The ground looked fluid like water but it was actually solid and dry. "Where…where am I?" I asked, looking back up at the man.

"You at Sanctuary," he replied. "Cosmos's hide out. If you're here I'm guessing you're on Cosmos's side too?"

I nodded. "Yeah I am. I'm Sakura. Who're you?"

"I'm Laguna," the man smiled, standing up and holding his hand out to help me up. "You must be new here, I haven't seen you before."

"Yeah, I'm new," I smiled as he pulled me to my feet. "Cosmos just…eh…recruited me I guess."

"Laguna!"

Laguna and I looked round to see a girl with black hair, a white tank top and black shorts running towards us.

"Hey Tifa!" Laguna grinned as the girl came to a stop next to us. "This is Sakura. New helping hand."

"Hey," the girl grinned. "Nice to meet you."

"Likewise," I smiled back.

"Where are the others?" Laguna asked Tifa.

Tifa jerked her thumb over her shoulder. "Right there," she replied.

I looked around Tifa and saw four other people walking towards us. One was a boy with blonde hair and weirdly colourful clothing, walking with his hands behind his head. The second looked like a man in purple armour. The third was a woman with pink hair and what looked like a red cape fluttering behind her. And the fourth…my jaw dropped open at the fourth person.

"Yuna!" I screamed, breaking into a run at the group walking towards us.

The other three looked startled, the pink haired woman actually pulling out a sword but Yuna held her arm out to stop her.

"Suki…" I saw her whisper before her shock turned into joy. "Suki!"

She began to run at me and we met half way, hugging each other tightly.

"What're you doing here?" Yuna asked me, tears in her eyes.

"Cosmos told me I needed to help a friend here," I grinned. "I guess she meant you!"

"Friend of yours Yuna?" the boy asked.

"Yes! Everyone, this is my cousin Sakura. Sakura, this is Vaan," she pointed at the boy who had spoken, "Lightning," she pointed at the woman with the pink hair who had nearly stabbed me, "and Kain," she pointed at the man in armour. "It looks like you already met Laguna and Tifa.

"Hi," I smiled round at all of them. Vaan smiled back but Lightning just kind of nodded at me, and I couldn't see Kain's mouth under his helmet.

I remembered Cosmos saying that her warriors lost most of their memories of home, so I was grateful that Yuna even remembered me. I'd have to be careful what I talked about in front of her in case she got upset about forgetting anything; I'd need to figure out how much she remembered.

"Well, should we get going?" Lightning said sharply. "It looks like the others are already there."

Without waiting for a response Lightning walked off towards where a crowd of other people were gathered.

"Um…did I do something wrong?" I asked Laguna who had ran to join us along with Tifa.

"Nah, Light's always like that," he smiled.

"And it doesn't help that Laguna has been getting us lost for goodness knows how long to get here," Kain added, making me laugh.

"Hey, I already told you! I was taking the scenic route!" Laguna protested.

I laughed again as Laguna stuck his tongue out at me and winked so I knew he was okay with it. Yuna took my hand in hers and squeezed it tightly as we followed the others.

My heart thumped in my chest at the thought of this new adventure.

* * *

 **AN: Soooooo that's chapter one! I hope you all enjoyed it, and please review!**


	2. Chapter 2 - Copies

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm so sorry this has taken so long to update! I didn't have wifi for nearly three weeks and then I had piles of university work, but FANFICTION, I'M BACK BABY!**

 **Thank you to xenocannan, ShadowRav, fanficlove2014, Bloodwitch Raven, A.K.b00m, Solaris Prime, Stratos263, Team Wingless and XxWoldMan95xX for reviewing the last chapter!**

 **I hope you all enjoy this chapter. Please review!**

 **This chapter is dedicated to BarakTheSlayer, Dusk-deerfluff, Elementwalker, Kweh Viola, LilPrincess95, Lumiere D'Amore, Renegade Saint, The Human Virus, xenocanaan, RagingStorms7482, ShadowMann, ZephyrCloud, fanficlove2014, lightningflash51, pokecats649, Bloodwitch Raven, Milenia-the-wings-of-valmar, clearshot01,A.K.b00m, Mousey Kimmy, Krissy Pooh Bear, 3000-Volt, Solaris Prime, Stratos263, LittleYami and Dorisangel (yep, there's a lot of you :-P )**

 **DISCLAIMER: Final Fantasy is owned by Square Enix. I own my OCs Sakura/Suki.**

* * *

 **Chapter 2 - Copies**

It turned out that it wasn't just myself, Yuna, Laguna, Tifa, Lightning, Kain and Vaan on Cosmos's team. There was a huge group of people who were gathered at this Sanctuary place Laguna had said we were in, and all of them turned to look at us when we walked up. There were all guys except for myself, Yuna, Lightning and Tifa, but it didn't look like I was the youngest. There was a really tiny kid running around wearing a weird red outfit, and another boy who could have been my age or slightly younger who had what looked like a tail protruding from him. I didn't recognise any of them from Spira, although Yuna did run up to man with messy black hair and no shirt on. When he turned around my eyes widened. He had a tattoo on his chest identical to the crest Tidus had on both his necklace and his shorts.

"Um…Yuna?" I tapped her on the shoulder. "Is this…?"

"Suki, this is Sir Jecht," Yuna smiled. "Sir Jecht, this is my cousin Sakura."

I braced myself when Jecht turned to me since I'd heard nothing but bad things from Tidus about his father, but when he smiled all that doubt vanished.

"Sakura, nice to meet you," he grinned kindly, holding his hand out.

"…Likewise," I replied, shaking his hand.

Before either of us could say anything else there was a bright flash of light a little bit away from where we were standing. When I turned to look I saw Cosmos floating in the air above us looking down at us. Then all of a sudden I could hear her speaking, but her mouth wasn't moving. It was like she was speaking directly into my head.

"I give you all my power," her voice said as she gazed at us with sad eyes. "This power will lay dormant inside you until you discover the catalyst: your crystals. With this power, you can defeat Chaos."

As she fell silent she grasped her hands together before releasing a blue light which had been gathered between them. The light flew out and spread all around us before a little ball of blue settled in front of everyone around me. The light shone brightly in front of them before fading.

Everyone except me.

Remembering what Cosmos had said about how I could keep my memories by forsaking the power of a crystal my eyes flew to meet hers. Cosmos was looking right at me and she nodded once. I took a deep breath before I nodded back.

"Suki?"

I turned to face Yuna who was smiling at me. She hadn't noticed about the light not coming for me.

"We're heading off now," Laguna smiled, walking up to us. "D'you wanna come with us Sakura?"

"Are you sure?" I asked to be certain.

"Of course we're sure!" Tifa grinned. "The more the merrier!"

"Well then…yes please!" I replied, smiling.

* * *

The seven of us – Yuna, Lightning, Tifa, Laguna, Vaan, Kain and I – walked together until we were a few miles away from Sanctuary. Most of the time was spent with Laguna and Yuna filling me in with what had happened to them so far.

"We should set up camp for the night," Kain said after a while. "It'll be dark soon."

"Good plan," Vaan smiled. "I'll go get some firewood."

"I'll help," Tifa offered and the two of them walked off.

"So how much do you remember Sakura?" Laguna asked me as we crouched down and started to build the fire pit.

"Remember?' I frowned, unsure what he meant.

"We all have very limited memories of our homes," Kain explained. "Part of the plan to make us more effective soldiers I suppose."

"Holding our memories hostage," Lightning sneered. "It's ridiculous and pathetic."

"It works though," Tifa admitted as she walked back towards us with Vaan, carrying a pile of firewood. "I'll do anything to get my memories back. For all I know I could have been friends with any one of you but I wouldn't know cause I don't remember."

"It's different for all of us though," Laguna continued. "See, Tifa remembers next to nothing, whereas Yuna remembered you and remembers quite a few other people from her world."

"You do?" I asked Yuna, my eyes wide.

Yuna nodded. "I remember you, Lulu, Wakka, Auron, Kimahri and…and Tidus," she blushed at Tidus's name. "We've all been journeying together."

"So where do you lie Sakura?" Laguna repeated her question.

"Um..." I stammered. I didn't know if I should lie or not. If I told them the truth - that I still had all my memories - would they resent me for it? Or would they think I was useless because I would never get a crystal so I could help them fight Chaos? Would they cast me out because of that?

"She doesn't have the power."

Everyone, myself included, turned to gape at Lightning who was standing at the edge of our make-shift camp.

"Light, what do you mean?" Vaan frowned.

Lightning had her gaze fixed on me. She didn't look angry or confused or anything at all; her eyes were hard and steely but had no emotion in them.

"I was watching her. When Cosmos gave us all her power back there, she didn't receive any. Why?" she asked.

I swallowed heavily and took a deep breath. "...Yeah, I didn't get any power from Cosmos. She told me when she summoned me here that she would allow me to keep all my memories but not give me a crystal. I don't know why. She said I wouldn't be able to fight Chaos without it but I can still fight Chaos's warriors so I'm not going to be useless, I swear!"

Everyone looked shocked, even Yuna and Lightning, but before anyone could say anything Tifa shrieked.

"Guys!" she cried.

Everyone leapt up and spun around. We were surrounded on all sides by what looked like other people…but they were identical to us. I found myself staring at myself right in the eye, except this version of me had no expression in her eyes and looked ready to kill me at the drop of a hat.

"Y…Yuna? What are these?" I asked, my voice shaking.

"I… I don't know," Yuna admitted, her staff now in her hand. "But I don't think they're on our side."

Everyone else was also facing a replica of themselves, all of them looking as if they were on a hunt for blood.

"They must be from Chaos," Lightning sighed, pulling a sword out from a holder behind her legs.

Kain was holding his lance in a ready position. Laguna had pulled out a massive machine gun and was looking very excited at the prospect of using it. Vaan also now had hold of a sword, and Tifa was in a fighting stance with her fists up.

"You ready for this?" Laguna murmured to me.

I smiled slightly and nodded, pulling out my red and silver sword. "I was born ready," I replied, my fear gone as the familiar feeling of holding the sword Tidus gave me washed over me. I could've sworn I saw a slightly twitch in the eye of the Sakura facing me before we leapt at each other, the others doing the same with their opponents.

I slashed down at the copy of me, aiming for her head, but she moved quickly and our swords clashed together. I rolled out of the way and slashed at her legs. She hissed at me before attempting to stab me through the stomach. I quickly jumped out of her reach and reflexly reached into my pouch at my hip, relief welling up in my chest when I found it full of Al Bhed grenades. I pulled the tab off of one and flung it at the copy before I landed back on the ground. The blast sent the copy flying backwards into the copy of Laguna before the both crashed to the ground. The copy of Laguna shuddered before shattering into millions of tiny pieces. Running towards me, Laguna shot at the copy of me with his machine gun, causing her to also shatter.

"Thanks," I grinned at him.

"Thanks for the grenade," he replied, also smiling, before we both set off running again, he towards Vaan and me towards Yuna.

Approaching the copy of Yuna from behind I leapt up and slashed down at her, managing to hit her shoulder hard. She whirled round before waving her staff and a giant creature appeared right in front of my face. I screamed as Ifrit slashed his claws at me, only just managing to duck out of the way as an ice blast hit Ifrit in the head. Shiva was standing next to the real Yuna when I turned round, the copy of Ifrit vanishing. Shiva turned towards the copy of Yuna as Yuna herself ran over to me.

"Are you okay?" she asked in a panic.

"I'm fine, promise," I reassured her. "You okay over here?"

"Don't worry, I've got this," she smiled, turned away from me to quickly dismiss Shiva and summon Valefor.

I looked round and saw that everyone else was fighting their copies without anyone being in serious danger, Laguna helping Vaan with his. That was when I noticed something in the distance.

" _Cred!"_ I grunted rather loudly.

Running towards us was another group of these copy creatures, not copies of us this time but copies of other people I'd seen at Sanctuary, including Jecht.

As I began to run towards them Kain spotted me out of the corner of his eye.

"Sakura!" he called out. "Where are you going?"

"Look!" I called back, nodding at the group of creatures.

Without waiting to see his reaction I continued running, throwing a grenade at the group as I approached so I had a smokescreen. The first creature I spotted was one which looked like the boy I'd seen with the tail. He attacked me as soon as he spotted me so I slashed down at him. Another creature tried to attack me from behind, this time mimicking a man I'd seen at Sanctuary who wore armour and had been standing very close to Cosmos. I kicked the copy of the monkey boy in the chest to send him flying backwards and quickly twirled round to cross swords with the man in armour.

"Sakura!"

Suddenly the man in armour shattered right in front of me as Kain appeared. I smiled and he smiled back. Without exchanging another word we both ran back into the fight, taking out as many copies as we could as the others started to slowly join us; first Laguna and Vaan, then Yuna, then Lightning and finally Tifa.

Eventually there was only one copy left, and it was another copy of me. I gritted my teeth and ran at her, clashing my sword against hers before I whipped my leg round and knocked her legs out from under her. As she felt to the floor I stabbed my sword right through her chest. Since she wasn't human there was no blood. She just glared up at me before she shattered and vanished.

Once she had disappeared I placed my sword back in its holder and rested my hands on my knees to get my breath back. I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned to see Yuna smiling at me.

"Good to know you haven't changed," she teased. "You're as good with a sword as ever."

I grinned back. "Good to see that Valefor and Shiva are as badass as ever."

Yuna laughed as I straightened up. I slowly looked round at the others and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw Laguna, Tifa and Vaan were all smiling.

"Girl, that was kick-ass!" Tifa grinned, high-fiving me.

"Yeah, you don't need to worry about the crystal thing," Vaan smiled reassuringly.

"Are you sure?" I mumbled, chewing on my lip. "I don't want to slow you down."

"I do not think you will slow us down," Kain spoke up, a ghost of a smile visible under his helmet. "If Cosmos chose you then you must be good enough even without a crystal, and with the fight you put up there you just proved it."

I let myself smile back and nodded. "Thank you," I said before glancing over at Lightning who was still looking very stony.

"Don't worry about her," Yuna whispered to me. "She's harmless as long as you're on her side. She just doesn't talk much, but she's an amazing fighter."

I nodded but couldn't help but worry. Lightning seemed pretty scary and the last thing I wanted to do was piss her off.

* * *

After we had eventually built the fire it got dark pretty fast. We decided to take turns on watch and Lightning said she would go first.

"I'll go next," I offered.

Lightning nodded once but she didn't say anything, going back to poking the fire with a stick to make sure it didn't go out. I sighed heavily but let it go and curled up on the ground next to Yuna.

I don't know how long I slept but I woke up without Lightning shaking me awake. I sat up slowly and blinked, finding it difficult to see anything in the dying light of the fire.

"You're early."

I whipped my head round to see Lightning sitting with her back against a rock staring at me.

"I wasn't going to wake you up for another hour. You can go back to sleep if you want," she said, keeping her voice down so she didn't wake anyone else up.

"It's fine, I'm awake now," I shrugged. "I don't mind."

Lightning shrugged back. "Your choice," she said before she stood up, motioning for me to take her back sitting against the rock. I did so and sat down and she walked the small distance to where the others were sleeping, silent except for Laguna snoring ever so slightly.

Just before Lightning reached the others she turned back to look at me where I was now sitting exactly where she had been sitting.

"You're very young to be here fighting," she mused.

"Well, some of the boys I saw at Sanctuary looked younger than me," I pointed out. "The kid with the tail and the other kid with the weird head-dress thing with all the feathers."

Lightning actually smiled slightly and nodded. "Good point," she agreed, crossing her arms as she kept looking at me. "Do you really still have all your memories?" I nodded slowly and Lightning sighed. "Lucky," she murmured as she sat down on the ground.

"What do you remember about your home?" I asked softly.

"Almost nothing," Lightning admitted. "Other than the fact I was a soldier, all I remember is that I have a sister. I don't even remember her name, only that she exists and that I love her."

"…I'm really sorry," I said quietly.

Lightning merely nodded and said nothing more. After a minute of silence I spoke up again.

"You can sleep you know," I mumbled. "I'm fine on watch, I promise."

Lightning smiled again. "I believe you," she said. "Goodnight Sakura."

"Just Suki is fine," I said quickly. "I only get called Sakura if I'm in trouble."

Lightning chuckled slightly at that. "Well in that case, call me Light."

I smiled and nodded. "Okay. Goodnight Light."

"Goodnight Suki," Light replied before lying down next to the others.

I stared into the embers of the dying fire for a while before moving my gaze up to the full moon above me. I had no clue what was ahead of me in this journey, but I was grateful Yuna was here with me as well as Light and the others.

What I didn't realise was that Yuna wasn't the only one here in this world that I knew from Spira.

We just hadn't thought about Chaos's side.

* * *

 **AN: Hope you enjoyed this chapter! Please review!**


	3. Chapter 3 - Blossom

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thank you to Stratos263, Bloodwitch Raven, xenocanaan, Solaris Prime, Krissy Pooh Bear, A.K.b00m and Anko4Life for reviewing the last chapter!**

 **I hope you all enjoy this chapter! Please review!**

 **This chapter is dedicated to Sive The Skittle Ninja.**

 **DISCLAIMER: Dissidia: Final Fantasy is owned by Square Enix. I own Suki/Sakura.**

* * *

 **Chapter 3 - Blossom**

I had woken Laguna up a few hours after Lightning had fallen asleep so I could get some rest before the sun came up. Before I knew it however Yuna was shaking me awake telling me it was morning.

"Did you sleep okay?" Tifa asked as I helped her to cover up our campsite so Chaos's warriors wouldn't know we'd been there.

"Yeah, not bad thanks," I smiled. "Did you?"

"Yep! Cause I wasn't on watch!" she grinned widely.

"Oi, you're on watch tonight along with Vaan and Kain!" Laguna chuckled as he walked behind her and flipped her long black hair so it fell over her face. Tifa shook her hair back behind her shoulders and glared at Laguna, quickly sticking her leg out to trip him up as he walked away. Laguna face-planted the ground and Tifa and I burst into laughter.

"Girls, stop messing around," Kain's deep voice said from behind us. We turned to look at him as he continued to speak. "We need to get moving as quickly as possible."

"Yep, on it Kain!" Tifa saluted him, causing Kain to crack a smile before he walked off.

Tifa and I finished off tidying up the campsite and our group all left, keeping an eye out for those things we'd had to fight the day before.

"So, what were those things?" I asked as we walked.

"The monsters from yesterday?" Yuna asked, to which I nodded.

"They looked like carbon copies of us to me," Laguna replied.

Vaan smirked slightly. "Thanks for the inside perspective."

"Well whatever they are, they just kept coming and coming," Tifa sighed. "It was crazy!"

"Manikins."

Everyone turned to look at Lightning.

"Manikins?" I repeated.

Light nodded. "A never ending pool of reinforcements." She frowned deeply. "What good is having Cosmos's power if we can't even manage to use it?"

"Well, well."

Everyone whipped round to stare up at the top of a small hill that we'd just walked past where the voices had come from. Two figures suddenly appeared up there, one was a very creepy clown with a terrifyingly large grin on his face and the other was a slightly more feminine looking figure with long feathery silver hair wearing a deep purple jacket with white sleeves, a sort of white half-skirt and purple leggings.

"If it isn't Cosmos's warriors, marching right into my arms of their own accord," the silver haired one said with a smirk on his face.

"Been a while since we've seen anything but puppets," Lightning glared in reply.

"Really?" the clown giggled. "Could it be you're out of steam? Oh you poor dears. I mean turn around! You still have more manikins waiting for a chance to play!"

All of us slowly turned around and stepped back slightly when we realised the clown was right. While we'd been distracted by these two we had been completely surrounded by manikins.

"Not again!" Vaan grumbled.

"I'll take care of these," Lightning said, staring up at the two people on the hill. "You guys deal with the others behind us. Do _not_ let them surround you!" She seemed to think for a moment before she looked back at me. "Suki, you're with me."

"Got it," I nodded before I tried to step towards her, but then I felt myself being held back.

"Suki, no, you need to stay with us where I can look after you!" Yuna said, her hand tightly gripping my wrist.

I smiled gently at her. "Yuna, I'll be fine, I promise. Light can look after me. The others need you to help fight the manikins."

Yuna looked unsure but a cry from Laguna made up her mind. She let go of my wrist and turned her eyes to Lightning.

"If she gets hurt I won't forgive you," she said sharply.

I could see the surprise in Lightning's eyes. Normally Yuna was so kind and soft-spoken, so that meant she was serious. However Light shook it off and nodded. "You have my word," she replied. Yuna accepted this and ran to join the others fighting the manikins.

As Lightning and I looked back up at the hill we saw the clown guy shuffle up behind the other man.

"Well Kujie-coo! It looks like now's the time for you to show us what you can do!" the clown grinned while he waggled his fingers. "I mean, there's only two of them now and one of them is just a little girl! This is your chance to shine!"

"What did you just call me?!" I shrieked, actually making Lightning wince.

"Will you not stop talking?" 'Kujie-coo' glared at the clown, both of them ignoring my outburst. "It gives me a headache every time you open that mouth of yours."

"Now?!" the clown cried impatiently.

The silver haired man glared at the clown. "I do not take orders or cues from you, Kefka. I will engage them _when_ I choose and _how_ I choose."

"Fine, fine, fine, fine, fine, whatever, I'll just shut up and watch you do your thing, okay?" Kefka grinned, stepping back slightly. "Just get on with the showing-me-that-you-ca-actually-put-up-a-fight part already Kuja!"

The silver haired guy, Kuja, waved his hand in dismissal at Kefka before turning to face us. "Lightning with no sky in which to hide, and a young blossom with no tree in which to grow… No choice now but to fulfil your destiny…and fall."

Both Lightning and I looked at each other and nodded, pulling our weapons at the same time without a single word passing between us. Suddenly Kuja disappeared from the hilltop and appeared in front of us.

"So ephemeral, both lightning and flowers," he smiled cruelly as he hovered above the ground, readying himself to attack us.

"Oh, I'll show you how lightning strikes," Lightning practically spat.

"And don't make the mistake of thinking that delicate looking flowers can't cause a world of pain," I grunted. "You don't feel the thorns of a rose unless you're stupid enough to get too close."

Kuja smirked at us both before lunging at us with the orbs of energy that had appeared around his body. Both Lightning and I dodged in opposite directions, a glance over my shoulder revealing that Kuja had decided to follow me. I smiled slightly. Bad decision Kuja, thinking I was weak just because I was a "little girl".

Flipping around just when Kuja was about to make contact with me I slashed down on him with my sword. Kuja doubled backwards, glaring at me before Lightning also smashed her gunblade down on him. Kuja whirled around and threw his energy orbs at Lightning. They smacked into her and caused her to be flung up into the air and pelted by the orbs again and again.

"Light!" I cried out before I ran at Kuja. Kuja however spun around and sent a fireball flying at me. It grazed my arm before I could move out of the way and I winced in pain but I continued to run at him, slashing round at his legs. Lightning took this opportunity to smash her gunblade into Kuja so hard that he whammed into the rocks behind us. Grunting as he stood back up Kuja waved his arms about and sent the energy orbs back towards us. This time however we were ready and we both avoided his attack, both of us slashing at him in quick succession so he couldn't attack us until he cried out loudly in pain and Kefka stepped in.

"Oopsie!" Kefka grinned mockingly down at Kuja. "Someone went and lost, didn't he? You know what they say about second place: completely pathetic! Meh, don't sweat it. A little thing like that's not gonna be the end of you. Should be the end of that rebellious phase of yours though!"

Kuja glared up at Kefka in silence as he faded away to nothing.

"The next time you fight it'll be study time! All over again!" Kefka continued to ramble as if he'd forgotten we were there. "Oh, what kind of deliciously depraved memories should I full you up with this time around?" As he chuckled he finally noticed Light and I staring at him. "What? You're still here?"

"You'd let your friend die?" Lightning shook her head. "You're not very different from the manikins."

"And that is the reason you're still standing now," Kefka replied, sounding the calmest we'd heard him during this whole encounter. "Shouldn't you be kissing my boots in appreciation?"

"Fat chance of that, Clowny," I snorted.

"How dare you…" Lightning glowered.

"Besides," Kefka continued, "it's not like he's really gonna die from that. Let him be, he'll be back."

I frowned. "He's not dead? He looked pretty dead."

Kefka giggled and floated up into the air, lying on his side suspended. "Now now, don't you go prying into that," he said. "Even if I went to the trouble of explaining, you'd just forget! Or at least you would Pinky." Kefka's eyes locked on me. "This kid seems different somehow but we'll figure her out soon enough."

I saw Lightning grit her teeth at the name "Pinky" but luckily she held herself back from running at him.

"Well, it's been lovely, but being me doesn't mean I'm free. Goodbyeee!" Kefka grinned, disappearing.

"What in the world was that about?" Light mused once he had vanished.

"I have literally no idea," I admitted, "but I do not like that clown."

"I second that sentiment," Lightning nodded as she put her sword away in its holder. I mirrored her and we both turned around. Yuna and the others had vanished, and so had the manikins.

"Do you think they're okay?" I asked nervously.

"Of course they are," Lightning replied confidently. "Come on, let's go find them before any more of Chaos's creeps show up."

I nodded and followed after her.

"You know, you're a pretty good fighter," she mused. "With proper training you could be excellent. Interested?"

My eyes widened. "Are you offering?"

Lightning cracked a smile. "I am."

I grinned. "I'd be honoured."

* * *

 **AN: Hope you enjoyed this chapter! Please review!**


	4. Chapter 4 - History

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: I AM SO SO SO SO SOOOOOO SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG! A lot of stuff happened in my private life in not a lot of time and I have had absolutely no time for writing any of my fanfiction and I hate that. I am so sorry; please don't all hate me!**

 **Thank you to Bloodwitch Raven, Stratos263, fanficlove2014 and A.K.b00m for reviewing the last chapter.**

 **This chapter is dedicated to cleo0421, tigerdude36 and Samantha Vi Tenebris.**

 **And again, I am so so so sorry that this hasn't been updated since January. I do genuinely feel awful…I apologise to all of you.**

 **DISCLAIMER: Final Fantasy is owned by Square Enix; I own Sakura.**

* * *

 **Chapter 4 - History**

"Do you really think Yuna and the others will be back at Cosmos's throne?"

Lightning shrugged. "We can only hope so kid. We don't have anything else to go on right now."

Normally someone calling me 'kid' would annoy me enough to speak up about it but for some reason when Light called me that it sounded more like a term of endearment than anything else so I let it slide.

We'd been walking towards Sanctuary ever since Kuja and Kefka disappeared, not running into anyone or anything other than more manikins the entire time.

"Light, can we stop walking for a bit?" I asked. "My legs want to kill me."

Lightning looked back at me. "Sakura, we can't afford to stop."

"Then let's do something useful during our break," I suggested. "You promised you'd teach me how to fight, didn't you?"

A small smile started to form on Light's face. "I thought your legs were tired."

"They are but I think they'll survive some training," I grinned.

Lightning smirked and pulled out her gunblade. "Oh, I don't know if they'll manage training with a soldier."

"Oh yeah, I'd forgotten you were a soldier," I replied, pulling out my own sword.

"Want to back down then?" she asked with a glint in her eye.

"Not a chance," I laughed. "I like a challenge."

Lightning chuckled slightly before running at me.

* * *

I collapsed onto the ground, breathing hard as Lightning finally sheathed her gunblade. She hadn't been lying; my legs hadn't managed to cope with training with a soldier.

"Well if nothing else, at least you got a good workout," Lightning teased, sitting down next to me.

"That is definitely true," I agreed, sitting up. "So…how'd I do?"

"Eager, aren't you?" Light smiled. "You're not bad kid, but you're not working your sword properly."

I frowned. "What do you mean?"

"You need to think of your sword as an extension of your arm and hand, not just as a tool you use to strike down your enemies," she explained. "You need to trust both it to defend you and yourself to wield it properly. It does take time, but you're already very good with your weapon. Clearly you've had some sort of training already?"

I shook my head. "Not really. My cousin taught me how to fight but with grenades and hand-to-hand combat. He didn't teach me with a sword. This one," I pulled out my red and silver fishhook sword, "was given to me by a good friend. It was his father's sword, then his own and now it's mine. He didn't really teach me how to use it as such; I guess I just picked it up from watching him."

"Well if you got to where you are now without any formal training then you must be naturally gifted," Light smiled. "That's very lucky. Make sure you use your skill for good reasons then."

"Like helping Cosmos?" I asked.

Lightning's face fell for a moment. "I suppose. To be honest though if I'd been drafted to Chaos' side and he was promising me a way home after all this like Cosmos is, I'd fight for him too."

"I understand that," I reassured her. "If I'd lost my memories I'd be desperate to get them back as well."

Lightning stared at the ground in silence for a few moments before looking back round at me. "Tell me more about your world."

I frowned. "Um…sure but why?"

"Maybe hearing about your world will help me remember about mine," she replied.

My expression softened and I nodded. "Alright…well I'm from a world called Spira, and it's pretty messed up. It's tormented by this monster called Sin, and Yuna and I along with some other people are on a mission to defeat it."

Lightning raised her eyebrows. "You're helping to defend your whole world and you're just a kid? That is impressive. No wonder Cosmos called you here."

I blushed slightly, never having thought of it that way, but in a way she was probably right.

"So what about you and Yuna?" she asked. "Are you close?"

"We are since I started traveling with her," I replied. "Before then I hadn't seen her in years."

"How come?"

"I guess you could call it a family feud," I shrugged. "Yuna's father, Braska, married my aunt Lynka. My Uncle Cid, Lynka's brother, disowned her for marrying a human so my cousins and I rarely got to see Yuna."

"Hang on. Your uncle disowned your aunt for marrying a _human_?" Lightning stared at me with suspicion bright in her eyes. "That means…you're _not_ human."

I sighed heavily and shook my head. "No, I'm not human. In Spira there are four main…well, I suppose you could use the word _species_. There are humans, which you know about. There are Ronso, which are kind of a human-cat hybrid. There are Guado, who are kind of wooden looking with longer limbs than humans, plus they're a lot faster. And then there are the Al Bhed, which is what I am."

"So what exactly _is_ an Al Bhed?" Lightning asked.

"We're very similar to humans. There's almost no difference physically apart from our eyes; we all have green eyes with a spiral for a pupil instead of a black dot. If you look close enough at Yuna you can see one of her eyes is green with a spiral because she's half Al Bhed. We also all have blonde hair, and we can all hold our breath for an insanely long time under water. We have our own language too, but most of us speak Spiran as well. Other than that the only difference is we use these machines called machina which are forbidden by the main religion of Spira, Yevon. Because we don't follow Yevon a lot of the other inhabitants see us as heretics and they hate us. Actually one of the people Yuna and I are travelling with _really_ hates the Al Bhed. Luckily he doesn't know that my cousin Rikku and I _are_ Al Bhed or he'd probably kill us."

Lightning said nothing for a few moments, taking all of this in. "…I don't know why," she said slowly after a while, "but that all sounds sort of familiar. I'm fairly certain we don't have Al Bhed in my world but I feel like we have some sort of people that the rest of us shun because we see them as dangerous. I can't remember anything else though…"

"Hey, at least that's something!" I smiled. "Maybe more will come back later."

"Maybe, yeah," she smiled back. "So, if you don't mind me asking, where did the Al Bhed come from?"

My face fell slightly and I looked down, remember our history well from the amount of times Uncle Cid had told it to Brother, Rikku and myself. "It's not a happy story," I admitted. "A long time ago there was this human mechanic named Alb. He managed to create a whole new race of humanoids called Bedohls. They couldn't use magic like most humans could, but they were brilliant at wielding machina and other machinery. He used them to fight a very powerful mage from Zanarkand, the biggest city in Spira at that time. The weapons the Bedohls fought with were so powerful that they had to be kept under surveillance at all times. It was said that these weapons kick-started the Machina War, a conflict which nearly destroyed Spira a thousand years ago. During the war the Bedohls were seen as the lowest of the low and were forced to work in factories to make more weapons and machines to fight in the war. Once the war was over we were blamed for it starting in the first place, and since the war was the reason that Sin came most of us were executed. Those who weren't were cast out and our name was changed to Al Bhed, a mash-up of our creator and our original name."

Lightning looked partially in shock as I finished my story. "That's…kind of awful. I'm really sorry that your people are blamed for all that pain when if it was anyone's fault, it was Alb's."

"But I'm not going to let that history be what defines me," I said, clenching my fists. "Ever since my uncle first told me that story I've sworn to myself that I'll be known for something else, for something better than just being another one of Alb's creations. I'm going to do something worthy with my life that people will remember. I want to change people's ideas about the Al Bhed and show them all that we're not the scum they think we are."

Lightning placed her hand on my shoulder and squeezed it gently, gaining my attention. "I know you will," she smiled. "If you're this passionate about it then I know you can do it."

I smiled back. "Thank you Light."

Lightning nodded before standing up. "We'd better get moving again. We need to get back to Cosmos and try to find the others."

Light held her hand out to help me up. As she did I spotted a figure far in the distance. I squinted and when I realised who it was I gasped.

"It's Yuna!" I cried, pointing to where she was.

Lightning whirled round and followed my gaze. "Are you sure? It wasn't a manikin?"

"No, it's her, I'm sure of it!" I insisted.

"Then go."

I looked back round at Light. "Wait, what?"

"Go after her," Lightning said. "Suki, you have your memories. Yuna may have some but she doesn't have all of them. You helped me remember a small something and we're not even from the same world. If you can help me, you can definitely help her. Go. She's your family."

I grinned and nodded. "You're right. I'll go get her and then we'll meet you at Sanctuary, okay?"

"You got it," Lightning agreed, "and remember what I told you about your sword."

"I will," I promised. "See you soon!"

Turning away from Lightning I ran towards Yuna. Stopping half way I looked back to see that Lighting had been running in the opposite direction but had also stopped and was now looking back at me. We both waved one last time before beginning to run again; her towards Cosmos and me towards Yuna.

* * *

 **AN: Again, I am so so so so so so so sooooooooo sorry this took so long. Please forgive me.**

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	5. Chapter 5 - Sword

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: Yeah, I suck. I have reasons but y'all don't care, you just want fic and fair enough too! I hope this is at least somewhat worth the wait!**

 **Thank you to Bloodwitch Raven and Gry20 for reviewing the last chapter. Also Gry20, I have to say I really loved your ideas and I will be using one of them in this chapter!**

 **I hope you all enjoy this chapter. Please review!**

 **This chapter is dedicated to najamuzen, jhellou, kinbarii tan, Krissy Pooh Bear, Procrastinatingismyforte and The Silver Magician of Chaos.**

 **DISCLAIMER: Final Fantasy is owned by Square Enix. I own Suki.**

* * *

 **Chapter 5 - Sword**

I lost sight of Yuna as I was running to catch up to her. Grunting in frustration I looked around to try and catch any glimpse of her but I couldn't see anything.

" _Cred_ ," I muttered under my breath.

Hearing a snapping twig behind me I quickly whirled round and whipped my sword out, and not a moment too soon as a manikin of Laguna was standing right behind me with its gun pointed at my head.

"I don't think so wise guy," I smirked before using my sword to move his gun down so it shot into the ground, whirling my leg round at the same time to kick him in the head.

Focusing on what Lightning taught me I tried to use my sword as an extension of my arm, making my moves smoother and spinning around more to throw the manikin off like she did. It worked pretty well and the fake Laguna had shattered after a few minutes.

That's when I heard the whistle.

Immediately running towards the sound I started calling out Yuna's name. It had to be her, I knew it.

And sure enough she appeared round the corner, a happy and yet slightly disappointed look in her eyes, and I didn't have to be a genius to know why. We both ran for each other and hugged tightly.

"Are you alright?" she asked. "Have you been on your own all this time?"

I shook my head. "No, I've been with Lightning. I just split from her now when I spotted you. She's heading back to Cosmos. Are you alone?"

Yuna frowned when I asked this. "I wasn't… I've been with Sir Jecht this whole time but I just lost him a moment ago."

"Well we should go find him," I suggested. "He can't have gone far if you were just with him."

"You're right," Yuna nodded, before she suddenly looked behind her. "I think I heard something over there. Come on."

Following right behind her we walked towards where Yuna thought she'd heard something.

"So…the whistle?" I asked.

Yuna laughed slightly under her breath. "Yeah… I wondered if in this world he'd really come running. Wishful thinking I guess."

I smiled sympathetically before I walked into something and fell backwards, not looking where I was going. Yuna gasped loudly.

"Don't worry, I'm alright," I reassured her before I looked up.

That's when I realised Yuna hadn't been gasping at me.

Because Tidus was standing right in front of us.

Yuna seemed frozen and Tidus offered his hand out to me.

"Hey, you alright?" he asked as he helped me up. "You'd better watch where you're going."

I blinked a few times in confusion as I properly took in Tidus. That was when I first realised he wasn't wearing anything from the waist up.

"Tidus, where the heck is your shirt?" I asked, raising an eyebrow as I watched Yuna's eyes quickly travel down Tidus's toned abs before they flew back to his face.

Tidus frowned. "You know my name? Did we…meet somewhere before?"

My stomach sank as he said that, but I knew Yuna's heart must have been breaking. But before either of us could answer Tidus was already running past us.

"Sorry, gotta get going!" he called back as he rounded a corner and disappeared.

My eyes shot to Yuna as soon as Tidus was out of view. Her eyes were wide and her mouth dropped open.

"That's him. That's really him…" she was mumbling before she seemed to snap out of shock and started to run after him. "Tidus, wait!"

"Hey, wait for me too!" I called out as I bolted after her. "Yuna! Slow down!"

Yuna stopped running and looked round at me. "Come on! We have to get to him!"

"Yuna, stop and think for a second," I said as I caught up to her. "Tidus wasn't at Sanctuary with us, remember. That means…that means he isn't on our side."

Yuna began to frown as she realised what I meant. "So he's…he's a warrior of Chaos? But that can't be right, he's not evil!"

"Yeah, if anyone from our world should be on Chaos's side it should be Seymour," I reasoned.

"Suki," Yuna glared at me.

"Look, that isn't important right now," I changed the subject. "It doesn't look like Tidus remembered either of us."

Yuna's shoulders drooped as I said that. She'd already realised that but she'd been trying not to think about it. But slowly she looked up and bit her lip. "He doesn't remember us…but we're not the only people here who Tidus should know."

My eyes widened as I realised what she was talking about. "Jecht!"

"We need to find them," Yuna stated before beginning to run after Tidus again, this time with me right beside her.

* * *

We'd lost sight of Tidus so we kept heading towards where Yuna thought Sanctuary was, hoping we'd find either him or Jecht along the way. We did run into Zidane, the monkey boy, at one point and Yuna properly introduced us. He seemed really nice, but he spotted someone he recognised in the distance and scarpered off pretty quickly. Other than that and fighting manikins it was a pretty quiet journey. Yuna didn't really seem up for talking other than to say she was impressed with how my fighting had improved.

Finally though we heard something familiar. It was Jecht, and when we peered round a corner we could see he was talking to Tidus. Neither of them looked very happy.

"You just can't get enough of followin' in my footsteps, can yah boy!?" Jecht was scoffing as we ran up.

"Can the talk already," Tidus grumbled. "Bring it on. Or are you too scared?"

"Stupid kid…" Jecht sighed, shaking his head. "Gone and gotten yourself brainwashed. Well you asked for it, yah good-for-nothin' punk!"

Just as Jecht was starting to lift up his sword we both ran in between the father and son.

"Wait!" Yuna called out.

"Yuna! Sakura!" he stammered in surprise.

"Just wait a second," I begged Jecht.

"Don't worry, I can handle this brat on my own," Jecht said, completely misunderstanding. "You two hang back and keep safe."

"Yuna…?"

As Yuna kept trying to convince Jecht to let her speak to Tidus, my eyes were locked on Tidus's face. The way he'd said Yuna's name there made it sound like maybe he found it familiar. I didn't even care if Tidus didn't remember me, I just didn't want Yuna to be forgotten.

With Jecht finally agreeing not to attack his son, Yuna walked towards Tidus. Stopping suddenly she looked back round at me and smiled. "He knew you before he knew me," she said softly. I smiled back nervously but nodded and walked up to her. She squeezed my hand slightly before we both looked to Tidus who was staring at us in confusion.

"Hey…it's me, Yuna. The summoner, remember?" Yuna smiled. "And this is Sakura. You met her on her uncle's ship."

"I don't know any Yunas or Sakuras," Tidus grumbled. "Now get out of my way! This is my fight; it's got nothing to do with you!"

"Yes it does!" Yuna replied, actually stomping her foot in frustration. "It has a lot to do with me! You…remember our journey together, don't you? Even I don't remember everything. But…" Suddenly her eyes lit up and she looked at me. "But Suki does!"

I gulped as Tidus's gaze shot down to me. No matter what I said there was no guarantee that Tidus would remember anything, but I needed to try.

Then I had an idea.

Stepping forward and pulling out my sword I saw Tidus tense up as if I was going to attack him. I held my other hand up to show I wasn't going to try anything and he relaxed slightly. Behind me I heard Jecht gasp slightly as he recognised the sword. I was going to have to explain this later…

"You recognise this, right?" I smiled. "This was your father's sword. Auron gave it to you."

"Auron…? How do you know Auron? And how do you have that sword?" Tidus asked, stepping back slightly.

"You gave me it Tidus," I replied. "You gave me it when someone else gave you a different sword. Your friend Wakka gave you his brother's old sword, and you gave me this one. We've fought together, protecting Yuna. You don't remember because Chaos has taken everything from you except the rage you feel for your father. Cosmos summoned your father here because he's a strong fighter, and the only person who hates your father enough to want to fight him no matter what is you. That's why you're here. You're not a bad person Tidus; you shouldn't be on Chaos's side."

"Suki's right," Yuna spoke up again. "You fought to keep me safe. You told me all kinds of stories. I may have forgotten some things…but I do remember you. I'd never forget you."

Tidus looked down in confusion, glancing up between our faces and my sword. "Look, just get out of my way," he said, but a lot softer than he had done earlier. "Don't make me go through you."

"I'm not moving," Yuna replied. "I know you won't hurt me."

"What are you talking about?" Tidus sighed, shaking his head slightly.

"Tidus…" Yuna said, walking closer to him while I hung back. "I've wanted to see you for so long. If you just remember, there won't have to be any more fighting. I'll stay with you, and keep you safe until you do. So please…come with us."

Tidus's gaze softened as he stared into Yuna's eyes. "Look, I-"

But before Tidus could say anything, someone else appeared behind him. A tall man in purple and gold armour with long blonde hair. Without saying a word he summoned an energy ball into his hand and threw it towards Yuna.

"Yuna!" I screamed.

"Watch out!" Tidus called, running towards her. Pushing Yuna out of the way the attack hit Tidus in the back and blasted him right back past where Jecht was standing and slamming him into the ground.

"Tidus!" all three of us cried out as we ran to him.

"Hey, stay with us!" Jecht murmured, kneeling down next to his son and lifting his head up, resting it on his lap.

I glared round at the man who'd done this, and he looked rather pleased with himself. Locking eyes with Yuna I nodded. " _Keja res ramm,_ " I hissed. Yuna nodded and turned back to face the armoured asshole.

While Yuna fought using her Aeons I knelt down next to Tidus and Jecht. Darkness looked like it was seeping from Tidus's body and he was barely moving.

"No…Tidus, you can't leave us…" I whispered, my voice catching in my throat as tears began to spring to my eyes.

"Come on! This is the real deal! Don't go dying on me here boy!" Jecht was yelling, paying Yuna and the other guy no mind.

Tidus managed to raise his head slightly to look at me. "Suki…I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. And dad," he moved his head slightly to look at Jecht, "take care of…Yuna…"

With that his head dropped again and he stopped moving altogether.

"No….no no no!" I screamed, beginning to shake him as I sobbed. "Tidus! Come back! _Lusa pylg!_ "

"None of that now! Damn kid!" Jecht grumbled, raising his hand up above his head. His hand started to glow bright white.

"Jecht…? What the hell are you doing?!" I asked in fear.

"Cosmos' power…" Jecht replied. "He needs it more than I do."

Without another word Jecht brought his hand down to Tidus's chest and the light shot into his son. The darkness that had been surrounding Tidus disappeared and his chest began to move up and down again.

"He's alive…" I breathed a huge sigh of relief. "Jecht, he's alive!"

Turning to face Jecht my heart froze once again when I saw him now lying on the ground.

"Jecht!" I shrieked, beginning to shake him.

"Sakura…it's alright," he murmured, his voice weak. "Tidus'll be fine now. Cosmos will hopefully take him back as one of hers now. You need to get him back to Sanctuary though Sakura. You and Yuna. Promise me you'll keep him safe. Don't let that jackass take him back."

"I…I promise," I managed to stammer out between my tears.

Jecht shot me a grateful smile before his eyes rolled shut and he also stopped moving, only the slight rise and fall of his chest indicating that he was still alive.

"Oh! It seems that events have taken a rather interesting turn."

Glaring round at the armoured man who'd been fighting Yuna, I saw my cousin gasp as she saw the two figures lying next to me.

"Sir Jecht!?" she cried. "Suki, what happened?"

My mouth opened and closed a few times, unable to get any words out between my tears.

"He has given his own strength to his son. The man's body is now but an empty vessel," the man said, beginning to walk over to me. "I've acquired quite the unexpected boon. It is time that we part ways, my lady."

The way he said that reminded me of Seymour, and that somehow snapped me out of my shock. I jumped up and stood in front of Jecht, my arms out wide to stop him.

The man did indeed stop and he raised his eyebrow. "What exactly do you think you're doing young lady?"

"Stopping you from taking Jecht," I replied. "This battle isn't over."

"No, but the war may as well be," the man smirked. "Your hands will be full enough fighting manikins." He nodded to Tidus lying on the ground. "Let that one fall before them just the same, if that is what he wishes."

"You think the manikins will defeat us, but you're wrong," I said, still glaring at him. "The others may not be able to fight Chaos himself without their crystals but without them we can still fight and beat the manikins. They have the same weaknesses as us, the same strengths as us, and we _can_ defeat them."

The man frowned as he stared right into my eyes. I stared right back, unafraid of him.

"Interesting…" he murmured before smiling slightly. "You are quite the rare specimen my dear. I can see why Kuja was so interested in you. A pity you were not recruited by Chaos before Cosmos got to you."

"What are you talking about?" I frowned.

"A warrior powerful enough to be summoned here without gaining the power of a crystal. Cosmos must have seen something very interesting in you," he concluded. "Unfortunately though, I am on a bit of a tight schedule. I am sure this is not the last time we shall meet, dear Sakura."

Holding his staff above his head as he laughed he began to fade away. A small scream from Yuna prompted me to look behind me, and I saw that Jecht had also disappeared.

" _Tysh ed!"_ I swore loudly.

Yuna quickly ran over to Tidus and knelt down next to him. "Tidus…open your eyes!"

"Yuna…" I said quietly, resting my hand on her shoulder. "Jecht made me promise we would take him to Cosmos."

Yuna slowly looked round at me and nodded, allowing me to help her up.

"Yuna! Suki!"

Hearing footsteps behind us we both turned to see Vaan and Laguna running towards us.

"Are you guys okay? What happened?" Vaan asked, glancing between us and Tidus.

Yuna looked down and a small sob escaped her. "Where do I even start?"

I squeezed her hand. "You don't need to," I said softly. After a small but grateful smile from Yuna I explained everything to Laguna and Vaan.

"Alight, I get the gist," Laguna said once I'd finished. "Nothing to go getting upset over though."

"The heck are you talking about?" I frowned at him.

"Hear me out, will you?" Laguna smiled kindly. "If Jecht got taken away, that means he's still alive, right? And Tidus is over there sleeping like a log."

"I bet a good punch'd wake him right up," Vaan teased.

"Tactful as a freight train, aren'tcha kid?" Laguna sighed, making both Yuna and I giggle slightly. "So girls, kicking and punching aside for the moment…"

"I didn't say we should kick him!" Vaan grumbled.

"Well whatever we do with him, the three of us still have some fighting to do with all of Chaos's other warriors," Laguna said. "So what we probably shouldn't be doing right now is sitting around here getting all glassy eyed and glum about things."

"…I suppose you're right," Yuna admitted.

"Well then, we're agreed. The only thing we can do is keep moving forward, right?" Laguna grinned.

We all nodded back before I heard something behind me. Looking around I saw a light surround Tidus before he disappeared.

"Yuna," I nudged her. "I think Cosmos just took Tidus away."

Yuna's eye were filled with worry for a moment but it was quickly replaced with relief. "He'll…be okay if Cosmos has him."

"Exactly," I smiled. "So let's get to Sanctuary. Maybe he'll be waiting there for us."

Yuna smiled back and nodded, and the four of us started to walk to where we hoped Tidus would be waiting for us."

* * *

 **AN: Thank you for reading! Please review!**

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	6. Chapter 6 - Sacrifice

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: Yeah yeah I know you all hate me… I'm not even going to try and defend myself. I suck. I really really suck.**

 **Anyway, thank you to xenocanaan, Bloodwitch Raven, Samantha, Gry20 and a bunch of Guest reviewers for reviewing the last chapter. Although, to be honest I didn't appreciate the guests who were being rather accusing in their reviews, saying things like, "no offence but what's keeping you?" Not meaning to be rude but you have no idea what's gone on in my life the past few months. Fanfiction was the last thing on my mind.**

 **That being said I do greatly appreciate those of you who were kind enough to check up on me while I wasn't writing. You're all very kind and you don't know how much I needed those messages, so thank you**

 **Anyway, enjoy!**

 **This chapter is dedicated to Joldino-Sidestreaker and skullkid836.**

 **DISCLAIMER: Final Fantasy is owned by Square Enix. I own my OC Sakura.**

* * *

 **Chapter 6 - Sacrifice**

We were approaching Sanctuary, Laguna and Vaan still making stupid jokes to try and get Yuna and I to laugh. We appreciated their efforts, but all we could think about were Tidus and Jecht. If Jecht was with Chaos now…and Tidus was on our side…were they just destined to fight forever?

"Wait, what the…?"

I looked up from where I'd been absentmindedly kicking a stone along when Laguna stammered. Following his gaze I saw Lightning standing in front of Cosmos's throne ahead of us. Initially relieved that she was unharmed, that relief soon turned to panic when I realised she was pointing her sword at someone else. I remembered fighting manikins that looked like him, and seeing him here at Sanctuary when everyone else received the power from Cosmos. He was on our side…but now he and Lightning were beginning to fight.

"What the hell?" Vaan muttered as all four of us broke into a run.

"Who is that guy?" I asked as we ran.

"None of us know his name," Laguna replied. "He calls himself the Warrior of Light though."

"Sounds like he's up himself," I remarked, making Vaan laugh and Yuna glare at me.

Lightning and the Warrior continued to fight as we ran towards them. Just before we got there though Cosmos stood from her throne.

"Stop! You mustn't fight! Hear me, warriors. Stay your blades."

The Warrior lowered his sword immediately, but Lightning hesitated. It was only when she saw us running towards her that she finally put her gunblade away.

"Suki! You guys are okay?" she said, a wave of relief passing over her face. "I was afraid Kain had gotten to you."

As we came to a stop beside her I frowned. "Kain? What're you talking about? He's on our side, right?"

Lightning looked grim as she glared at the Warrior. "Apparently not… This guy and Kain have been taking out their own allies."

All four of us shifted our gazes to the Warrior and all our hands went on instinct to our weapons.

"…Who's been taken out?" Laguna asked.

"I saw Kain attack Bartz," Lightning informed us, still glaring at the Warrior, "and Cosmos said Jecht's been taken out too. No doubt that was Kain as well."

"Actually…" I started, causing all eyes to fall on me, "that wasn't Kain. Yuna and I were there. This other guy from Chaos's side tried to attack Yuna. Our friend from our world, Tidus, jumped in front of her to protect her. He was really badly injured, so Jecht gave him the power Cosmos gave everybody in order to save him. The guy who tried to hurt Yuna then took Jecht away."

Lightning sighed heavily. "I…I'm sorry that happened to Jecht. But even if Kain wasn't involved in that, he still attacked Bartz and vanished with him."

Cosmos's gaze, which had been on me, now shifted back to the Warrior. "Speak," she commanded him. "You know more than you reveal."

After a few moments of silence, the Warrior finally began to explain himself.

"My pardons," he said to Cosmos, essentially ignoring the rest of us. "I meant to speak to you about Kain later. This fight, you see… Kain and I… We've yielded."

"What does that mean?" Light asked, frowning.

The Warrior looked over at us again. "No sooner had Cosmos imbued us with her power than the twisted warriors we came to know as manikins appeared in this world. An endless spring of military might, directed by the forces of Chaos. For each we would slay, two more would take its place. Had we so chosen, we could have battled until our last ounce of strength was drained. There was one thing, however, that we knew we could never do: win. And the longer we fought, the more painfully apparent that became. Eventually, whilst fighting, I ran into Kain. He asked me how I placed our odds when it came to fighting the manikins. I told him I believed we should fight as long as we had the strength. However, he then asked me if I would agree to a way of winning by accepting that loss to the manikins was inevitable."

"That…doesn't make any sense…" Yuna murmured.

"Kain then told me," the Warrior continued, "that this war is a cycle with no end. Even if we fall, we are simply revived and forced to fight once again."

Everyone was silent as they took in what he'd said. I slowly looked up at Yuna and she looked just as shocked as I felt. Turning to look at Cosmos she was looking right back at me.

"Is…is that true?" I asked slowly. "Have…we all been here before and we just don't remember?"

"…You haven't Sakura," Cosmos replied, not fully answering my question but implying that what the Warrior had said was true for the others.

"Wait…" Lightning stepped forward again. "You're taking down your own allies and putting them to sleep so they'll get revived? You expect me to buy into that? You don't think we can win, so you think we should just lose on purpose?!"

"I do," the Warrior replied calmly. "It is our only hope of success."

"Where do you even dream up a fairy tale like that?!" Light snapped at him, getting right up in his face. "Look… Even if what you're saying isn't completely crazy, what's the point in getting revived so we can keep fighting an endless war?" She took a deep breath and turned away from him. "I mean…if this war isn't gonna end…why even fight? What in the world are we doing here?"

The Warrior looked at her with pity and sadness in his eyes. "…Making the war end," he answered her question quietly. "Is that not correct, Cosmos?"

Cosmos looked up at him and held eye contact with him but said nothing. Eventually the Warrior broke his gaze with her and looked back over at Lightning. "We are here to use the power Cosmos has granted us, our crystals, to bring the cycle grinding to a halt. But as matters stand, we are doomed to fail before we can even obtain them."

Lightning squeezed her eyes shut for a moment as a flash of pain passed over her face. Somehow I knew exactly what she was thinking about: her sister. Her sister whom she couldn't even properly remember but now she was afraid she would never see again.

"If we do not embrace the cycle, the crystals will never be ours to wield," the Warrior continued.

"Not exactly uplifting," Laguna pointed out.

"We don't even have the time to consider our options," Yuna bit her lip with worry as Vaan sighed heavily.

The Warrior now turned to the rest of us. "It was my hope that you would journey onward, to face the next battle."

"And you?" I asked him. "What are you going to do?"

"I've sworn an oath to Kain," he replied. "While he puts the other warriors to sleep, I am to serve as his shield."

"Are you guys, like, brothers in arms, to the bitter end?" Laguna asked, frowning slightly at the thought.

The Warrior ignored Laguna's comment. "Whatever hope we have rests upon you and the next fight," he continued. "Sometimes you must lose a battle to win the war. Please try to accept this. The crystals are our only hope."

"You're wrong."

Both Lightning and I looked at each other in surprise as we spoke at the same time. Everyone else looked back and forth between the two of us as we shared a smile.

"The crystals aren't our only hope," I said simply, "and I know that because I don't have one. And I never will."

The Warrior frowned and turned to Cosmos. "What…does she mean?"

Cosmos looked at me and smiled gently. "Sakura…still has all her memories of her home. Her condition for retaining those memories was for her not to have a crystal." She looked back over at the Warrior. "I would not have summoned her here and given her that option if her crystal was necessary to her fighting here."

Light nodded once to me before looking back at the Warrior. "The two of you can do whatever you want," she said. "But don't go asking me to believe in this crap. Me… I make my own fate. I'll keep looking for hope until I find some."

Something about that phrase made my heart speed up in my chest, and I smiled.

"Say your 'next battle' were to start now. There wouldn't be any fewer enemies out there," Lightning continued. "And starting over fresh doesn't guarantee we'd get our crystals any faster either. At the very least, we might as well cut their numbers down first. It sure can't hurt, can it? And it might just give us a shot."

Everyone looked around at everyone else. A spark of hope was starting to appear in Yuna's eyes, and Vaan's as well.

"Guess now's as good a time as any," Laguna spoke up with a smile on his face. "Just happens I've got some intel that might change the whole game. You wanna even our odds? Try this on: I know where the manikins are coming from." As we all gasped Laguna quickly starting talking again. "Well, more 'how to find where they come from'," he clarified. "But if you wanna go looking, I'm up for it."

"You are…?" Lightning began to smile.

"You know…I'm in too," Vaan grinned. "I promised to help end this thing, and that's what I'm gonna do. I'm not giving up now. I'm finishing what I started." He shot a glance over at the Warrior. "We've got better things to do than napping."

"I'm coming too," Yuna stepped forward. "I can't just sleep here while you're all out fighting. I can't turn my back on people like that. If I can help, then I'll keep fighting."

I grinned before leaning on Yuna's shoulder. "Guess I'm coming along too so I can keep an eye on you Yunie!" I joked, making her laugh before I straightened up. "But seriously…Cosmos told me right from the start that without a crystal I couldn't actually fight Chaos. Finding the manikins…I think that's why I was called here. I'm coming too."

Lightning smiled and nodded before we all turned to look at the Warrior to see his reaction.

"The road you choose is no easy one," he said. "You would still walk it, knowing what you face?"

Lightning simply scoffed at him and smirked, apparently not feeling that he deserved a verbal answer.

The Warrior rolled his eyes at her before thinking to himself for a moment. "…Very well," he said eventually. "Then I shall place my hope and trust in you."

"Well then, guess it's a date," Laguna grinned. "Looks like we've got some manikins to disassemble."

Lightning nodded once before looking at the rest of us. We all nodded at her in turn before we left Sanctuary, not even looking back at Cosmos and the Warrior.

"Suki…" Light murmured as she came to walk beside me. "I'm…glad you're safe."

I smiled shyly up at Lightning. "I'm glad you're safe too."

Light smiled back as Vaan spoke up. "So Laguna, where're we headed?"

"Well I ran into this chick who's on Chaos's side," Laguna explained. "A really beauty, you know? I mean, not that I was looking or any-"

"Laguna," Lightning warned.

"Right sorry," Laguna grinned. "Anyway, she told me that manikins are unnatural. It sounded like she hated them too, even though they're on Chaos's side. Anyway, she said they're coming from a place called the Rift, and that there's a portal connecting this realm to that one. If we seal it, then the manikins won't be able to get through anymore."

"So, Chaos's warriors aren't behind the manikins?" I asked.

"That's what she told me," Laguna replied. "She said there were already a lot of manikins that had managed to come through, but…how was it she worded it? She said we should follow the trail and seek out the source."

"So…the number of manikins will increase the closer we get to this portal…" Lightning concluded.

"But why would a warrior of Chaos tell you all that?" Yuna asked. "Why would she help us?"

"It wasn't exactly helping," Laguna said. "She said that if we decided to go looking for the portal, there would be so many manikins that it would basically be certain death. She wasn't very cheery about it."

"So she wants to see what decision we make even if we know it's dangerous," I sighed.

"Seems like it," Laguna nodded. "So…do you all still want to go?"

Everyone nodded without hesitation. This was bigger than any one individual person; this was about the fate of an entire world, maybe even all the worlds we'd all come from. We needed to do this to better the chances of the others.

Even if it meant sacrificing ourselves to make that happen.

* * *

 **AN: I realised that the Dissidia portion of Sakura's story only has two or three chapters left… Scary!**

 **Hope you enjoyed this one!**


	7. Chapter 7 - Pathway

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: So. I was in a car accident.**

 **I'm fine, I promise, but just to prove I have a good reason for why this hasn't been updated in so long (oh lord it's been 7 months holy balls I am so sorry).**

 **If I did actually worry any of you I am really sorry. Hopefully you understand.**

 **Thank you to Gry20, Bloodwitch Raven, Samantha and all the guest reviewers for reviewing the previous chapter.**

 **This chapter is dedicated to najamuzen.**

 **DISCLAIMER: Final Fantasy is owned by Square Enix. I own my OC Sakura.**

* * *

 **Chapter 7 - Pathway**

The five of us had been walking for a while, fighting the ever increasing hordes of manikins as we went. None of us knew exactly where this "Rift" place was, but as Laguna had said, following the manikins was our best option.

However, although Laguna's information had been exceedingly helpful, his sense of direction still left something to be desired.

"Hmm… Guess we go this way?" he was musing out loud.

I rolled my eyes. "Laguna, we literally just came from that way."

Laguna began to look embarrassed while Yuna giggled. "So we should be headed this way," she said, pointing in the opposite direction Laguna had been looking.

"Ah, right!" Laguna nodded, as if that had been his plan all along. "That's what I meant to say."

"You really are hopeless, aren't you?" Vaan grinned.

"I've been called worse," Laguna laughed good-naturedly. "Well then, shall we?"

I turned to check the last member of our group only to see her leaning against a nearby wall, frowning in the direction we'd just came in.

"Light?" I called out. "What's wrong?"

"Come on, that's not the right way," Vaan said to her. "We'll end up going in circles listening to Laguna."

Lightning ignored his quip and didn't shift her eyes from where she was staring. "We've got company," she said.

And sure enough, around the corner came Tifa with Kain close behind her.

"They're here!" we heard Tifa exclaim when she saw us, before she ran up to us.

I realised I hadn't seen Tifa since Light and I fought Kuja, so I smiled in relief as she joined our group, although we all laid a cautious hand on our weapons when Kain joined us.

"You two came all this way to catch up with us?" Laguna asked. "Would I be right in guessing you're here to send us off to dreamland?"

Kain didn't even look surprised to hear that we knew about it, only a little disappointed under his helmet. "Ah. So you've caught wind of my plan."

"And Tifa, you're in on it with him?" I asked, frowning.

"Well, not exactly," Tifa explained, wringing her hands behind her back. "I don't agree with what he's doing, putting everyone to sleep and all, but I didn't want him to have to do it alone. Friends don't abandon each other like that, you know?"

Kain looked down at Tifa with a fond smile, and I felt my guard drop slightly.

"But what are you all doing out here so far from Sanctuary?" Kain asked.

Vaan gave us all a quick glance before he explained the situation to Kain and Tifa.

"So you're going to stop the manikins?" Tifa asked.

"Yes," Yuna nodded. "We have to do something. If we don't stop them now, there'll be even more to fight later."

"I trust you know that you may well meet your ends?" Kain said with a voice of caution.

"Just as well as you do," Laguna replied, sounding more serious than I'd heard him before.

"We all want to win this thing," Vaan pointed out. "We're just going about it different ways."

"Guess so," Tifa agreed. "Well, you know what… I'll help too. We're trying to do the same thing after all."

Yuna nodded and smiled gratefully.

"Then let us go. The longer we talk, the greater their numbers grow."

We all turned to stare at Kain.

"Wait, 'us'? Meaning you too?" I asked, my eyebrows flying up to my hairline in surprise.

"If you fail your lives are wasted," Kain stated simply. "It's best I add to your numbers."

"Well, not gonna argue with that," Laguna shrugged, at least somewhat breaking the tension. "Better to have more help than less. But still…"

Laguna glanced over to Lightning, who had been silent this entire time.

Light caught his eye and grunted slightly, pushing herself off of the wall before continuing to walk along the route we were on. "Do what you want," she muttered as she passed us.

I glanced at Yuna before running after her, knowing the others would be following slightly behind us.

"Hey, are you alright?" I asked as I began to walk beside her.

"I'm fine," she snapped.

I raised an eyebrow in response and she sighed heavily. "Sorry. I'm not angry at you. I just hope none of you expect me to forgive Kain for what he's done."

"I don't," I quickly reassured her, "and I'm sure the others don't either. Even Kain himself probably doesn't think you'll forgive him. But if you think about it, if he hadn't started to look into all this and discovered about this cycle and all, we probably wouldn't be here heading to destroy this portal. We'd still be aimlessly fighting the manikins and getting nowhere."

"I…suppose that is true," Lightning nodded slowly before looking down at me again, a ghost of a smile on her face. "How do you always manage to see the positive in everything?"

"My older cousin, he's a bit of a grump. He gets it from his father. I guess I always tried to be the optimistic one of the group," I grinned.

Light chucked to herself. "Hey, Suki? You know how you told me that your people – the Al Bhed, right? – have their own language?"

"Um…yeah?" I replied, wondering where this had suddenly came from.

"Well, what would be a really good name to call Kain? In case I get frustrated with him later on so he won't know what I'm talking about."

I burst out laughing before actually thinking about her question. "Well… _telgrayt_ is a good one! It gets the point across but I can sometimes still get away with saying it in front of my Uncle Cid."

Lightning grinned back and nodded. "Alright, _telgrayt_ it is then. I'm not even going to ask what that translates to."

"Probably for the best," I admitted, silently praying that Yuna hadn't overheard us.

* * *

We'd continued traveling for a few hours when we stopped to rest. Lightning was talking to Kain and Tifa was on the lookout, leaving Vaan, Laguna, Yuna and I to our own devices.

"I wonder how the crystal's supposed to show itself…" Vaan was musing.

"If we had the time to adapt to Cosmos's powers, would things have been different?" Yuna asked.

"If time wasn't an issue, that may have worked," I nodded.

Laguna frowned. "But how would we have adapted? I mean, maybe I'm just not cut out for it."

I opened my mouth to reassure him but Vaan beat me. "Yeah, maybe not."

Yuna and I started to laugh while Laguna glared at Vaan. "You know, you really should watch your mouth."

"But," Vaan continued, "maybe things went wrong because our minds and Cosmos's mind became distant."

"Our minds became…distant?" Yuna frowned in confusion.

"We're too busy fighting the manikins," Vaan expanded. "We're nowhere near ready for Chaos."

"Hmm…you've got a point," Laguna nodded.

"Yeah, even our final objective is all about the manikins now," I pointed out.

"If we can destroy the door to the Rift, the next ones can share their minds with Cosmos," Vaan said quietly, kicking a small stone across the ground. "So in a way, what we're about to do is really important, and really close to the crystals."

"Hopefully what we do will make it easier for the others to get their crystals too," I added.

"You're actually making good sense Vaan," Laguna smiled. "Our enemy becomes Chaos only in the next conflict. Then we'll share Cosmos's will."

"Maybe you're right," Yuna smiled weakly, gently squeezing my hand. "I would like to believe that."

"Well, I guess it won't hurt anymore if we're wrong… So maybe we should believe," Laguna suggested.

Vaan nodded before stretching his arms over his head. "I'm gonna go take over from Tifa so she can rest for a bit."

We all nodded as he walked off and I turned to Yuna. "Are you okay?" I murmured to her, our fingers still laced together.

"Mmm…" she nodded. "I'm just worried about Tidus. He wasn't at Sanctuary when we were there…"

"I know, but our best bet to help him it to believe Cosmos is looking after him and for us to destroy the portal to the Rift. That way if Cosmos summons him in the next cycle then he'll be able to get his crystal."

Yuna nodded and smiled gratefully. I hugged her before looking up to see Tifa wandering over to Lightning and Kain. Hoping they'd talked out why Lightning was angry – and also wondering if Light had used that Al Bhed curse word I taught her – I stood up and walked over to them.

"There is another cycle, right?" Tifa was asking them.

"That I do not know myself," Kain replied. "It's not as though I saw proof." At that point he noticed me. "Sakura. Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," I nodded. "I just… Yuna's worried about this cycle business too."

"But we don't even know if it's true," Lightning frowned at Kain. "And yet you went around knocking allies out?"

I sighed under my breath. So they hadn't sorted it out.

"There was hope in my actions. Well…not hope, but a gamble perhaps," Kain attempted to defend himself. "I took a risk to believe in a chance, rather than live as a pawn to disappear."

Tifa rested her hand on his arm. "You should have talked to us."

Kain looked down at her and smiled softly again. "If I did, no one would be asleep and everyone would be here."

Lightning sighed sharply. "I guess…you're right about that."

"So everyone else is as stubborn as us seven?" I deduced, causing the other three to smile.

"More or less," Tifa agreed with a grin.

"I could only knock them out alone… Protect them from our enemies…," Kain spoke with pain threaded through his voice before he looked up at us again. "But we are only able to attack the gate thanks to all of you."

"We haven't done anything yet," Lightning said. "If you want to take a chance, we need to first stop those manikins from appearing."

"And no way that's going to be easy," I murmured.

"Suki's right, but we have to try," Tifa said, "for the sake of the others as well as our own sake."

Everyone nodded as I glanced back over at Yuna. In her case she wouldn't even be thinking about herself; it would all be for others.

* * *

"We must be getting close," Tifa said after a while longer, and I could see why she was thinking that. The manikin hordes were getting larger and larger the further we went.

"You can almost…feel the evil here," Yuna shuddered.

"Manikin headquarters, huh?" Vaan sighed from his spot on the ground where he sat leaning against a pillar. "I wonder what it's like inside."

"You seem a little too calm about this," I said, crossing my arms over my chest and leaning on the pillar next to him.

"Well, it's not like I'm not worried," he replied. "Just…you know, we've never been there."

I laughed slightly. "Can't be scared if we don't know what it's like?"

"Well, I guess that's something," Tifa smiled.

"I suppose…" Yuna agreed, although she didn't sound so sure.

"There you go!" Vaan grinned, pleased he'd managed to make them at least slightly more optimistic.

"It doesn't seem as scary if there's something to look forward to," Tifa reasoned.

"And what exactly are you looking forward to?" I asked.

Tifa grinned again. "A good fight of course!"

I laughed, as did Yuna this time. "I guess I'll just pretend I'm looking forward to this too then," my cousin smiled.

"There's not a lot to really be looking forward to now, is there?" Laguna joined the conversation.

"This from Sir High Spirits?" Kain raised an eyebrow, and I burst out laughing at how fed up he sounded at Laguna's cheerfulness.

"Ah, touché!" Laguna replied with a grin. "But see, I'm trying to keep everyone positive. It's calculated." We were all rolling our eyes at him so he looked over to Lightning for some reason, as if she was going to have a different reaction. "Come on, it was just a joke!" he said to her. "No need to glare at me."

"Nobody's glaring," she replied, looking away.

"Yeah, that's just Light's face," I called out, taking a huge risk.

Yuna gasped, Vaan, Laguna and Tifa burst out laughing, Kain looked like he was trying to hold back laughter, and Lightning looked like she was going to kill me before her face softened slightly. "You're lucky I like you Suki," she warned, and I grinned meekly in response.

Everyone was smiling, and for a moment everything was calm.

But of course that couldn't last.

Sinister laughter filled the air before two enormous armoured figures appeared in front of us, one in blue and one in black. Kain's gaze fixed on the one in black and his hand clenched tightly around his lance.

"Searching for something?" the one in blue mocked. "Continue down this path, and there will be no return for you."

"Great, thanks for the tip," Tifa sneered. "We'll be sure to keep that in mind."

"Assuming you should survive," the one in blue laughed again.

"For the time being, you may indulge us in battle here," the one in black spoke for the first time. "By the time we're done, all will be over."

"What?" Kain said what we were all thinking.

"Surely you sensed something amiss?" the same man spoke again. "The manikins are all but gone from this place."

"What's going on?" Lightning asked.

"The manikin horde should be arriving at its destination as we speak," the one in black announced.

"Its destination?" Yuna said worriedly.

"Where's that?" Vaan added.

"So this is your game," Kain stated with venom.

I frowned. "Kain? What do you mean?"

"Even a goddess could not hope to defeat such overwhelming odds," the one in black continued, a shiver of fear running down my spine as I began to realise what he was talking about. "But she will have to do her best. The manikins march on Cosmos's throne."

"They what?!" Lightning cried out.

"Have you forgotten?" the armoured figure laughed cruelly. "Warriors robbed of their master disappear into the darkness. A true demise, from which there can be no hope of rescue or return."

Kain suddenly ran forward towards the two men in armour. "The rest of you go on ahead," he called back to us.

"Kain?" Tifa called in worry.

"What about Cosmos?" I asked.

"It's too late," Kain replied.

"Too late?!" Vaan protested, before Laguna placed his hand on his shoulder.

"Even if we went back now, we'd never make it in time," he explained. "Only thing we can do is trust our last line of defence to hold."

"You mean that one warrior guy?! On his own?!" my eyes widened.

"There's a limit to what one man can do," Kain admitted. "Every moment we waste is a blow against him. I'll hold them here while you destroy the portal. If you don't hurry, we'll fail at even that."

"But…are you sure?" Yuna asked, her worry clearly evident on her face.

"I can hold my own," Kain assured her. "When I've finished with them, I'll follow behind."

"See you on the other side," Lightning said, to which he nodded.

"Be careful Kain," I added, which he also nodded to.

"Come on, let's go!" Lightning said to the rest of us, before we ran, leaving Kain behind to face those men alone.

I prayed it wasn't the last time we saw him.

* * *

"Do you think Kain is alright?"

I looked over at Yuna who was staring up at the darkened sky and attempted to smile. "I'm sure he's fine. Like he said, he can hold his own. He's really strong. We've all seen him fight the manikins."

Yuna nodded, but once again didn't look entirely convinced.

"Speaking of manikins," Tifa said as she walked over to us with Lightning behind her, "we must be really close now. There are so many of them…"

We'd been making our way in the direction of the Rift for a fair while since we'd parted ways with Kain, and as Tifa said our encounters with the manikins were becoming more and more frequent. I was becoming increasingly grateful that we were all here together as a group, although I really wished Kain was with us.

"If we close the door to the Rift," Yuna began to speak, "we can restore calm in this world, and those sleeping can wake up and start fighting again."

"Those sleeping… You mean Chaos's warriors?" Lightning asked with a frown.

When Yuna's face turned red I answered for her. "More like one very specific warrior of Chaos."

Tifa and Lightning had both been caught up on the situation with Tidus, so they nodded in understanding.

"Yuna…maybe you should stay behind," Tifa suggested softly. "You have people you want to protect here. Your memories are from your homeworld. You won't forget him even if you slept."

"But I-" Yuna started to protest.

"You don't have to come," Lightning agreed. "If he matters to you, stay with him."

I raised an eyebrow but didn't say a word. Light was the last person I would've expected to say that.

Yuna looked down for a moment, as if she was considering it, before looking back up with determination in her eyes. "No, I should… I _will_ do what I can do. I'll fight...so that Sir Jecht and Tidus can put an end to their duel in the future."

I smiled, proud of my cousin, as I squeezed her hand. "They'll be alright," I reassured her. "Those two are strong."

Yuna nodded. "Yes, I'll believe in them," she agreed. "And I'll walk my own path."

Lightning and Tifa looked at each other before smiling and nodded to Yuna, respecting her decision before they walked back over to the others. I started to follow them but realised Yuna hadn't moved. She still stood there, gazing up at the sky.

"This is the end of our time here," she murmured quietly. "The next will be yours. I wish I could have walked together with you, but there's no path for us to walk on yet. I'll make your path this time. Everything'll be okay, right Tidus?"

Yuna stood there for a few more moments before she took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, turning to me as she did so. I smiled and held my hand out for her. She took it and we walked after the others.

* * *

 **AN: The next chapter will be the last one! I hope you enjoyed this one. And if you are still reading this story, thank you!**


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